vote:

the vice president: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to change their vote? if not, the vote on this amendment is 51 yeas, 48 nays. the bill is passed. mr. reid: move to reconsider. a senator: move to lay on the table. the presiding officer: without objection. the majority leader. mr. reid: thank you very much -- the vice president: without objection. the majority leader. mr. reid: i move to -- the vice president: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. 3414 a bill to enhance resill -- resiliency of the cyber space infrastructure.

mr. reid: i have a cloture motion at the desk. the clerk: cloture motion, we the undersigned senators move to bring to debate on the motion to proceed s. 3414, a bill to enhance the resiliency of the cyber communications infrastructure of the united states signed by 17 senators as follows. mr. reid: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent the reading of the names be waived. the vice president: without objection. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent the mandatory quorum under rule 22 be waived. the vice president: without objection. mr. reid: mr. president? the vice president: the senator from nevada. mr. reid: i rise with great pleasure to honor my colleagues, senator patrick leahy vermont and dick lugar of indiana as they reach a milestone in their careers. they each cast a momentous vote just a short time ago. for senator leahy the vote just cast is 14,000. his 14,000th roll call vote.

for senator lugar, it's interesting, same day, 1,000 votes apart. senator lugar is at 13,000. and these two fine men and dedicated senators share this milestone by coincidence. i applaud pat leahy, my dear friend who always possessed great drive to serve. maybe it was growing up across from the statehouse in montpelier that put the idea in his head at such a young age. after graduating from georgetown university law school pat served as eight years as a state attorney. he continued to exercise his fine legal mind and led the fight against land mines. numerous landmark pieces of legislation, he has been the leader. pat is loved by the people of vermont. he has intellect, oratorical skills, boldness and

persuasiveness are overshadowed by one thing, mr. president: by his teammate, marcelle. she is clearly his greatest asset. i commend my colleague, senator lugar, on reaching his milestone, his 13,000th vote. a fifth generation hoosier, longest serving member of congress in history. graduated first in his high school and college classes and going on to become a rhodes scholar at oxford. as ranking member of the foreign relations committee and past chairman of the committee, having served with the presiding officer for decades, he's dedicated his time in the senate to reducing the threat of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. so it's been my distinct pleasure to watch both of these fine senators work tirelessly on behalf of their home states. i congratulate both of them on reaching this impressive milestone. mr. mcconnell: as the majority leader has indicated, two major

legislative milestones have been reached in the senate today by two dedicated long-serving senators who happen to be from different sides of the aisle. i pay tribute to the senior senator from vermont, senator leahy, for casting his 14,000th vote. and to the senior senator from indiana, senator lugar, for casting his 13,000th vote. to put these milestones in perspective, senator leahy, a member of the senate since 1975, ranks sixth on the all-time roll call vote list, most recently passing former senator pete domenici. senator lieu tkpwarbgs who was first -- senator lugar, first elected to the senate two years later in 1976, ranks tenth on the all-time list and most recently passed our former colleague and current occupant of the chair, vice president joe biden. this is not only a remarkable accomplishment of longevity for

both men, it's also an opportunity for their colleagues to honor them for their decades of service to the people of indiana and of vermont. senator law had i isn't just a -- senator leahy is also the chairman of the judiciary committee and the senior member of the agriculture and appropriations committee. pat and i got to know each other pretty well, alternating as chairman and ranking member of the foreign operations subcommittee of appropriations for over a decade. somehow he finds time to also be an amateur photographer and to have a blossoming movie career. and i have no doubt he gives most of the credit, of course, to marcelle, his wife, with whom he'll be celebrating a far more important milestone next month, their 50th wedding anniversary. congratulations to you, pat, on

both counts. as for our friend, senator dick lugar, i've known him going back to my first senate campaign. he's the longest-serving member of congress in indiana history and one of america's most widely respected voices on foreign policy. in a career filled with many achievements and milestones, senator lugar's leadership on the nunn-lugar cooperation threat reduction program is, in my opinion, his greatest and most lasting achievement for the american people. not only for the american people and for the security of this country, but for the promotion of the peace throughout the world. because of senator lugar's work, thousands of nuclear warheads have been dismantled, and the world is indeed a safer place. for senator leahy, i know senator lugar would say none of this would have been possible without the love and support of his wife of 55 years, charlene.

so i congratulate them both on this milestone and join my colleagues in once again paying tribute to our two colleagues and this significant achievement. mr. president, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. sanders: mr. president, i rise to congratulate my longtime friend and colleague from vermont, senator patrick leahy, on the occasion of his 14,000th vote. that is a lot of votes. in the long history of our republic, only six senators have achieved that milestone before him. born in montpelier, vermont, our state capital, educated at st. michael high school in montpelier, saint michael college and georgetown university law school, senator leahy was first elected to the senate in 1974, the first and to this date the only democrat elected to the senate from

vermont. and i remember that campaign very, very well because i was in it. and pat leahy got a lot more votes than i did. before assuming the office of u.s. senator, pat leahy gained a national reputation for law enforcement during his eight years as state's attorney in the state's largest county. over his three and a half decades here in the senate, patrick leahy has done many, many remarkable things, and let me just mention a few. cognizant of the suffering and tragedy that land mines cause for civilian populations, patrick leahy has led in this body -- and in fact the entire u.s. government -- the campaign to end the production and use of antipersonnel land mines. many lives and limbs have been saved as a result of senator leahy's efforts. with similar commitment and passion, as chair of the senate judiciary committee, patrick

leahy has led the effort to insist on fairness at the department of justice to support free speech and a free press and to require and maintain openness and transparency in government. at a time of major infringements on privacy rights in this country from both the private sector and the government, pat leahy has been a strong champion of civil liberties and the constitution of the united states. senator leahy reflecting vermont's very strong consciousness regarding the need to preserve our environment, has for many years been a champion of environmental protection and has been named over and over again one of the top environmental legislators by the nation's foremost conservation organizations. he has been, as vermonters well-know, a special champion in preserving the high quality of water on lake champlain.

today i congratulate on behalf of the people of the state of vermont senator patrick leahy on the occasion of his 14,000th vote and look forward to working with him as closely in the future as we have worked in the past. thank you, mr. president. mr. leahy: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: mr. president, i want to thank, of course, the majority leader and the republican leader, friends with whom i have served with for years, and we have always been friends, for their kind words. i want to thank my colleague from vermont, another dear friend. our careers have paralleled in many areas. the time he was mayor of our largest city to our lone

representative in the house of representatives to now my partner here in the senate. of course, my dear friend, dick lugar. we've worked together so many times. we alternate between chair and ranking member of the senate agriculture committee. we did a great deal on the environment, passed an environmental bill, did so many things. all the time when he was doing his invaluable work to protect our nation against nuclear weapons. mr. president, i -- you know, i value the senate. i love the senate. it has been a major part of my life. but i was glad to hear both

leaders mention the true love of my life, my wife of nearly 50 years. there is nothing i have accomplished throughout my whole public career that i could have done without marcel's help. she raised three wonderful children and happened to raise five wonderful grandchildren. every single day i have been a better person because of her. when we first started the race for the senate in 1974, few people said i could win. marcel and i campaigned

together. she always said i could. and we did. none of us knew how long we might be in the senate, but i have valued every single moment here, and i will value every single moment as long as i am here. i'm glad marcel is here. she's joined by my dear and valuable friend peter welch, our congressman from vermont, and his wife margaret. also, so many members of my staff. i feel that i have been blessed with the finest staff any senator has ever had. and, again, they are the ones every day -- if i look good and do something well on this floor, i'll give the staff the credit. i joke to them, a constitutional impediment to them total lit running everything. but thank goodness they are

there. so i'll speak more about this at another time, but i -- it is a special feeling to be here with my friend, dick lugar, to hear the kind words of my friend and colleague, bernie sanders, to know that other members of our delegation -- the other member is peter welch in the stand. but especially marcel and kevin alicia, and mark and their families, how wonderful it is to be here. i yield the floor. mr. lugar: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from indiana. mr. lugar: what a pleasure it is to be with my colleague, pat leahy, on this very special day. it was a great coincidence that the 13,000th vote and the

14,000t,000th should coincide. but what a joyous moment to be with my friend on this experience. i thank, once again, the leader, mitch mcconnell, of our party, and harry reid, the majority leader of the senate, for their very generous remarks about both pat and me, and i join pat in extolling the virtues of those who have made such a difference in our lives. my wife charlene, our four sons, our 13 grandchildren, our great-grandchildren -- these are very precious people who have made such a difference in my life, made it possible for me to have good health and spirits throughout this time and to enjoy thoroughly this experience. i would just add to the remarks of my colleague that tomorrow we hope have a little celebration in the agriculture committee

room. long ago at the beginning of our creation, pat and i were situated at the end of the long table that stretched the length of the agriculture committee room. our chairman, herman talmadge of georgia, was at one end with senator jim eastland from mississippi. i'm not certain what the rules of the senate were at that time, but i recall frequently both were enveloped in smoke at the end of the room. and it seemed to me that they were, in fact, developing whatever the policy was going to be and making decisions. as a matter of fact, sometimes they simply arose and pat and i were left to ponder really what had occurred. so it was appropriate that our two portraits should be put at the end of the table, at the entry to the agriculture committee room, where we once sat as the most junior members and eventually ascended to chairmanship and great experience in foreign policy and

the ability to help feed the world. i am grateful likewise for joe biden, vice president biden's presence today, because he was a wonderful partner in the foreign relations committee for so many years. i was not aware that the vice president would be in the chair. i told him i was somewhat embarrassed because my 13,000th vote finally eclipsed his votes, and he ranks now 11th. joe was aware of that. had in the chair today the rankings, 1-11. sort of all situated and still love each other in the process. i thank all senators for the honor that has been accorded and for this opportunity to address the body. this has been a great experience of my life, and this has been a very special moment. thank the chair. a senator: mr. president?

mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from wisconsin. mr. johnson: thank you, mr. president. i ask unanimous consent to address the senate as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. johnson: i thank my colleagues for this achievement and their service to the k i also appreciate the willingness of senator collins and senator lieberman for a their willingness to allow me to speak just for a few minutes before we return to the business at hand, legislation regarding cybersecurity. i wanted to point out to my colleagues and perhaps to the department of agriculture something that i saw today that catches my attention and in fact i'm -- it is amazing to me this development. this is the department of agriculture, usda's employee newsletter. and in that newsletter it says the following. it has a section in the newsletter that says "food services update."

well, the department of example which in my view has a -- well, the department of agriculture, says this. "one simple way to reduce your environmental impact while dining at our cafeteria is to participate in meatless monday. meatless monday, this effort, encourages people not to eat meat on mondays. how will going meatless one day of the week help the environment? the production of meat, especially beef and dairy as well, has a large environmental impact. according to the u.n. -- according to the u.n., animal agriculture is a major source of greenhouse gases and climate change. it also wastes resources. it takes 7,000 kilograms of grain to make 1,000 kilograms of beef. in addition, beef production requires a lot of water, fertilizer, fossil fuels, and pesticides. in addition, there are many health concerns related to the excessive consumption of beef."

"related to the excessive consumption of meat. while a vegetarian diet could have a beneficial impact on a person's health and the environment, many people are not ready to make that commitment, because meatless monday involves only one day a week, it is a small change that could produce big results." our own department of agriculture -- again at least from my perspective -- and we ought to look what the mission of the department is, i think it will reflect what i'm saying -- is to promote agriculture, to help those who every day go to work to produce food, fiber, and fuel thor this country and the world. and yet our own department of agriculture is encouraging people not to eat meat and indicates that these statements -- again, from their newsletter -- "the usda headquarters food operations are a high-profile operation to demonstrate usda's commitment to usda's missions and initiatives." so, i wouldn't surprise me that

what you see the department of agriculture somehow lose this newsletter. but it's posted on their web site, and i just would encourage secretary vilsack to rethink their role in discouraging something that is so vital to the u.s. economy and something so important to the kansas economy. we are a beef-producing state, and generate significant revenue for kansas farmers and ranchers, and it is one of the items that improves our balance of trade as we export meat and beef around the world. and yet our own department of agriculture encourages people not to consume meat. mr. president, i think i'll have more to say about this topic, but for the moment, in light of the kindness that was extended to me by the senators, i would yield the floor. mr. lieberman: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. lieberman: thank my friend from kansas.

normally what you yield the floor to a colleague in the senate, you're not quite sure how long he's going to speak. so he not only kept his word to speak for less than three minutes, but he proved that he continues to have some lingering holdover reflexes from his service in the house of representatives, where they always speak shorter than we do. mr. president, what's the pending business? the presiding officer: motion to proceed to s. 3414. mr. lieberman: i thank the chair. mr. president, i rise to support that motion to proceed to s. 3414, which is the cybersecurity act of 2012, and i do so with the hope and the request that all of our colleagues will vote "yes" on this motion to proceed, so we can begin what i think is a crucial debate about how best to protect our national and

economic security in this wired world where threats increasingly -- and thefts -- come not from land, sea, or sky but in invisible strings of 1's and 0's traveling through cyberspace. this bill has been a long time in coming to the floor, and a lot of work has been done on it. but i must say, i have a sense of confidence certainly about the inclination of -- of the overwhelming majority of members of the senate to vote to proceed to this matter because i think everyone in the chamber understands that what we're dealing with here is not a problem that's speculative or theoretical. anybody who's spent any time not even studying the classified materials on this but just republican colleague the newspaper, following the media knows that america is under

daily constant cyber attack and cyber theft. the commander of cyber command, general keith alexander, said recently in a speech that -- that cyber left it represented the largest transfer of wealth in human history. that is, stealing of industrial secrets, moving money from bank account, i believe he said it was as if we were having our future stolen from us. and it's all happening over cyberspace, and obviously enemies, both nation states, nonstate actors like terrorist groups, organized criminal gangs and just plain hackers are finding ways to penetrate the cyber systems on which our society depends, the cyber systems that control critical

infrastructure, electric grid, transportation system, the whole financial system, the -- the dams that hold back water, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. so this problem -- the problem that this -- this bill is not a solution in search of a problem. it is a problem that is real and cries out for the solution that this bill would provide. there's some controversial parts of the bill and there's been some spirited debate, both in committee and in the public media about it. there's a competing bill introduced by some of our colleagues called secur it. but i want to report to the chamber and to the public there was a significant breakthrough today where the lead cosponsors of our bill -- senators collins, rockefeller, feinstein, carper

and i -- met with the lead cosponsors of the other bill -- senators chambliss, mccain, and hutchison -- along with a group of senators, led by senator kyl and senator sheldon whitsheldonwhitehouse, along wir coons, senator mikulski, senator coats and others who have been working very hard to create common ground because they recognize the urgency of this challenge. well, this is good news. we got a motion to proceed which in the current schedule will come up on friday. i think it would send a message of real encouragement to the public that we could still get together across party lines on matters of -- of urgent national security if we adopted that motion to proceed overwhelming overwhelmingly, particularly now that we're engaged in dialogue with this -- the leaders of the main bills and people trying to

bridge gaps that began to meet today. we'll meet again tomorrow morning. so i think we've got a process going that could lead us to a very significant national security accomplishment. i'm going to yield at this time to senator rockefeller, chair of the commerce committee, whose committee produced a bill of its own and he worked very closely with senator collins and me to blend our bills. we did. senator feinstein came along with her chairmanship of the intel committee of the senate, did some tremendous work on information sharing, title 7 of the bill before us. i know senator rockefeller has another engagement that he has to go to so i'm going to yield to him for his opening statement, then senator collins, who's, as always for all these years, been just the most steadfast, constructive, study,

reliable, creative, constructive -- i said that already, constructive, didn't i? -- partner in working on this bill and gives me confidence that together we're going to see it to success next week. so i would now yield to the distinguished senior senator from west virginia who is a real expert on this subject and has contributed enormously to the bill that is pending before the senate now. mr. rockefeller: my dear colleague. the presiding officer: the senator from west virginia. mr. rockefeller: thank you. i would feel better if the senator from maine spoke before i did. ms. collins: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maine. ms. collins: that is very kind of the senator from west virginia. my statement is quite lengthy, so if the senator from west virginia, in light of his

commitment, would like to precede me, i would be more than happy to have him do so. so i would encourage him to go ahead and then the senator from connecticut has graciously said that he would allow me to go next. thank you, mr. president. we're all so nice around here. [laughter] mr. rockefeller: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from west virginia. mr. rockefeller: i wish all negotiations proceeded with such comity. for those of us who've lived long enough, we have seen, obviously, enormous transition and we're in a totally new age. today, as we begin our debate, over 200 billion e-mails will be sent around the world to every continent. google, a company that is really just ten years old, will process over a billion searches and stream more than 2 billion videos today. and in the next minute, about

36,000 tweets will be posted on twitter. so we're now connected as we never have been before. here in the united states, we've been a leader in both its development and adoption. and the initial structure actually is interesting because it was created really by our own government, and the open nature of the internet can be traced back to our initial decision in the government to relinquish control of what we had invented, so to speak. so to this day, our nation remains a leader in using the internet for innovation and growth. in just over a decade, we've digitalized and networked our entire economy and our entire way of life. every one of our most critical systems now rely upon the -- these interconnected networks. power grids, transportation systems, gas pipelines,

telecommunications -- they all rely on networks to function, they all rely on the internet. yet the ramifications of this new era remain poorly understood by many, frankly, by most. history teaches us that disruptive technological advancements can bring about both opportunities and also dangers. we cannot let our exuberance blind us from this simple truth. we cannot ignore the part of the equation in this happy adventure of our as that is unpleasant and this is it. these technological advances can compromise our national security and, indeed, are already so doing. the connectiveiy brought about by the internet and the new ability to access anything, combined with our decision as a country to put everything we hold dear on the internet, means that we are now vulnerable in ways that were unfathomable just a few years ago. yes, we rush to digitalize and

connect every aspect of the american economy and way of li life, and we've spent little time focusing on what this actually means with respect to our security. we've left ourselves extraordinarily vulnerable and the consequences, as pointed out by the senator from connecticut, are devastating. our intellectual property is -- is our greatest asset as a nation, it's our greatest advantage in the world. it's currently being pilfered and stolen because it's connected to the internet and, therefore, is unsecure. well, we didn't think about that, did we? experts have called this, as the senator from connecticut said, the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of the world. dramatic statement but just an absolutely terrifying fact. terrifying fact. our most important personal information, including our credit card numbers, our financial data is now accessible via the internet and is stolen

through data breaches that occur all the time. and most importantly, our critical infrastructure, from water facilities and gas pipelines to our electric power grid and communications network, are now vulnerable to cyber attacks. and they are happening. many of these systems were designed before the internet. in fact, virtually all of these systems were designed before the internet came about and were never intended to be connected to a network. yeteyet they are and, therefore, they are unsecure. if these systems are exploited via cyber vulnerabilities, lives could be lost. yes, there's lots of other things that could happen before that, but this -- this has the potential to be far greater than even the tragedy of 9/11. in recent months we've learned that hackers penetrated the networks of companies that control our nation's pipelines, gas pipelines. there have been attempts to

penetrate the networks of companies that run nuclear power plants. and last year, a foreign computer hacker showed that he could reach -- he could access the control systems of a water control facility in texas with ease. he accomplished this task in minutes at a computer thousands of miles away. our critical infrastructure is being targeted and it is vulnerable. our major general of our national guard, james hoyer, recently shared a frightening story with me. he was talking about his work on cyber security and he said, in west virginia, he learned that a critical infrastructure facility in the state, critical infrastructure society -- that means a really important one -- its engineers were being allowed to operate control systems from their home computers. how naive? but who would have -- who would know, who would have guessed? the internet and what it has done for our country is unparalleled, but everything we

have accomplished in this internet age is now vulnerable and in starker terms undoable. we have built a castle in the sand and the tide is approaching. our systems are too fragile, too critical and too vulnerable. it's a recipe for disaster and it's time to do something about it before it's too late. we've all known about the seriousness of our cyber situation for years. our national security experts know it. our law enforcement experts know it, and there's a bipartisan agreement that something needs to be done. but that dent tell you a lot to make that statement in the senate. in m.i.a. capacity both as chairman of the commerce committee and former chair of the senate intelligence committee and still on that committee, i've become very familiar with the threat posed by cyber security. and i've been working with my colleagues to address it. for the past three years, a number of us have been working with both republicans and democratic senators to find

common ground on these issues so we can have a bill to get control of this. we've held hearings, we've held markups. we've held countless meetings with the privat private sector d interest groups. it's an endless, endless process, and the staff does four times as much. we've been very patient in working to find a compromise and now is the time to make that compromise happen. it won't happen today. it could happen in the next several days. we know what we need to do, i do believe. so here's what we know riot now. the federal government -- so here's what we know right now. the federal government needs to do a better job of protecting its own networks. companies control most of our nation's critical infrastructure and they need to do a better job of limb anything cyber -- eliminating cyber vulnerabilities from their systems. there are no clear lines of authority and responsibility in the federal government for cyber security, which will cause exiewtion in the event of a cyber to catastrophe. and the private sector and the federal government need to be able to share information about

cyber threats. over the last year, the committee of jurisdiction in the senate have worked together, the committees have worked together to finalize legislation that addresses each of these concer concerns. senators lieberman, senator feinstein, senator collins and myself have made it a priority and others to finish this work together and with a broader group. we believe tha every member of s body will be able to support some kind of legislation. we have put legislation before the senate but it's subject to change, and in fact, may be in the process of -- of changing in a good sense because we held a long meeting this morning. we're going to have another one tomorrow, perhaps on a daily basis, and the basic thing is that we have taken a -- what we have done is taken a more regulated approach -- in other words, you have to do this. this is what urbledz do, at what level, you should do it.

we've taken that away and we've made it much more voluntary. we've made it a vowel terry approach. and some say, well, that's worse than no bill at all, to which i would reply, no, if you incent people properly with a voluntary approach, the pressure to do something is greater, particularly if they have to submit to audits as to the standards of work which they're doing to protect themselves. there are a variety of ways to do this. we could have a council, d.h.s. council which would decide what the standard should be. there was some talk this morning about having a convening session called by nist, the national institute of science and technology, which is very good at this stuff, to convene the private sector and have those two kind of work out a system,

but the nist has no authority, they have no regulatory authority, so they could just let them come up with their suggestions, and then there was an idea that maybe the d.h.s. could take a look at that and certify it, stamp it with approval or not on basic critical infrastructure, and of course you would have to pick out which was the critical infrastructure because there's lots of it. and so which one would be subject to special regard is something that we still have to work out. this bill is -- however it works so far and i think in the future is bipartisan. there is some sort of tribulation about let's let bygones be bygones. we have all given up and compromised, to which my point of view is we have been working on this for a very, very long time, and we have been joined by others who have very, very good ideas. but don't close off the past for

the future. the bill will be bipartisan. it will incorporate the good ideas and suggestions that have been made by many of our colleagues. we have settled on a plan that creates no new bureaucracies. however that plan forms, it will have no new bureaucracies or heavyhanded regulation. that's already understood. it's premised on companies taking responsibility for securing their own networks with government assistance where necessary. this bill represents a compromise and it's time to move forward with it. i think in closing, i think back to the year 2000 and 2001. i was on the intelligence committee at the time of 9/11, and, you know, the fact is -- we did reports on this which have never surfaced but we know we did them and we know what the facts were, that there were signs of people moving around

the country, and they weren't just sort of haphazardly moving around the country. san diego, a certain safehouse in san diego would appear, the people coming and going from there. there was the f.b.i. office in minneapolis and the massawi case and the f.b.i. office in minneapolis reported to the f.b.i., u.b.l., osama bin laden office and the f.b.i., and perhaps that didn't happen. we all knew that something was new and we all knew that the world was getting different, and we knew the danger could come upon us. our intelligence and national security leadership took these matters very seriously. however, they did not take it seriously enough nor did we. so then it was too late. 9/11 happened and the world changed forever. today we have a new set of warnings flashing before us with

a wide range of challenges to our security and safety, and we again, once again face a choice. act now and put in place safeguards to protect this country and our people or act later when it's really too late. obviously, the conclusion is that we must act now. i thank the chair and i yield the floor. ms. collins: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maine. ms. collins: thank you, mr. president. first, let me thank the senator from west virginia for his comments. he has worked so hard on this issue for many years, but in particular the past three years as he and the chair of the senate intelligence committee, senator feinstein, have worked with senator lieberman and with me. so, mr. president, i rise this evening to urge our colleagues

to vote to begin the debate on the cybersecurity act of 2012. senator lieberman and i have introduced this bill, along with our colleague, senator rockefeller, senator feinstein and senator carper. it has been a great pleasure to work with all of them, and work we have in numerous sessions over literally a period of years , as we have attempted to merge the bills that were reported by the commerce committee and the homeland security committee. and, of course, mr. president, it is always a great pleasure to once again work with my dear friend, the chairman of the homeland security subcommittee, senator lieberman, as we bring forth yet another bipartisan bill to the chamber for its

consideration. mr. president, f.b.i. director robert mueller has warned that the cyber threat will soon equal or surpass the threat from terrorism. he has argued that we should be addressing the cyber threat with the same kind of intensity that we have applied to the terrorist threat. this vital legislation would provide the federal government and the private sector with the tools needed to help protect our country from the growing cyber threat. it would promote information sharing, improve the security of the federal government's own networks, enhance research and development programs, and most

important of all, it would help to better secure our nation's most critical infrastructure from cyber attack. these are the power plants, the pipelines, the water treatment facilities, the electrical grid, the transportation systems, the financial networks upon which americans rely each and every day. the fact is the computerized industrial controls that open and close the valves and switches in our infrastructure are particularly vulnerable to cyber attacks. indeed, the internet is under constant siege on all fronts by nations like china, russia and

iran, by transnational criminals, by terrorist groups, by activists and by persistent hackers. that is why our nation's top national security and homeland security leaders from the current and former administrations have urged us to take legislative action to address this unacceptable risk to both our national security and our economic prosperity. earlier this year, defense secretary panetta leon panetta described our bill as -- quote -- "essential to addressing our nation's critical infrastructure and network cybersecurity vulnerabilities, both of which pose serious national and economic security risk to our

nation." end quote. just last month, the secretary reiterated his call for congress to pass our bill and stressed the potential for a cyber attack to cripple our critical infrastructure in a way that would virtually paralyze this country. the director of national intelligence, james clapper, has also sounded the alarm. he has described the cyber threat as a profound threat to this country, its future, its economy, its very being. the warnings, mr. president, have not been confined to officials in the obama administration. former national security officials, including michael chertoff, michael mcconnell,

paul wolfowitz, michael hayden, have written that the cyber threat is imminent and represents one of the most serious challenges to our national security since the onset of the nuclear age 60 years ago. they have urged us to protect the infrastructure that controls our electricity, water and sewer, nuclear plants, communications backbone, energy pipelines and financial networks with appropriate cybersecurity standards. similarly, in a letter to our colleague, senator john mccain, general keith alexander, the commander of u.s. cyber command and the director of the national security agency wrote -- "given d.o.d. re

reliance on certain core critical infrastructure to execute its mission as well as the importance of the nation's critical infrastructure to our national and economic security overall, legislation is also needed to ensure that infrastructure is sufficiently hardened and resilient." mr. president, the threats to our infrastructure are not hypothetical. they are already occurring. for example, while many of the details are classified, we know that multiple natural gas pipeline companies have been the target of a sophisticated cyber intrusion campaign that has been ongoing since december of last year. the cyber threat to our critical

infrastructure is also escalating in its frequency and severity. according to d.h.s.'s industrial control systems cyber emergency response team, last year, almost 200 cyber intrusions were reported by critical infrastructure owners and operators. that is nearly a 400% increase over the past year, and these are only the intrusions that have been reported to the department of homeland security. many go unreported, and even worse, many owners are not even aware that their systems have been compromised. what would a successful cyber

attack on our critical infrastructure look like? well, mr. president, we have just seen recently what a serious storm that leaves more than a million people without power can cause. the loss of life, the blow to economic activity, the hardship for the elderly, the nonworking traffic lights that resulted in accidents. multiply that impact many times over if there were a sustained cyber attack that deliberately knocked out our electric grid. the threat is not just to our national security but also to our economic edge, to our competitiveness. the rampant cyber theft

targeting the united states by a country like china has led to the greatest transfer of wealth in history, according to general alexander. you've heard many of us use his quote. let me give you some specifics of his estimates. he believes that american companies have lost about $250 billion a year through intellectual property theft. $114 billion to theft through cyber crime. and another $274 billion in down time the thefts have caused. in their op-ed earlier this year, former d.n.i. mcconnell, former homeland security

secretary chertoff and former deputy secretary of defense bill lynne, warned that the cost of cyber espionage and theft easily means billions of dollars and millions of jobs. the threat of a cyber attack doesn't just go to our national security, critical though that is. it also directly is a threat to america's ability to compete, to our economic edge. in recent years, a growing number of u.s. firms, including sophisticated firms like google, lockheed martin, r.s.a., sony, nasdaq, and many others, have been hacked by malicious actors.

earlier this month, the security firm mack afee release release -- mcafee released a report on a highly sophisticated intrusion dubbed operation high roller which has attempted to steal more than $78 million in fraudulent financial transfers at at least 60 different financial institutions. trade associations have been attacked, too. the chamber of commerce was the victim of a cyber attack for many months. blissfully unaware until informed by the f.b.i. that its membership data were being stolen. the evidence of our cybersecurity vulnerability is overwhelming. it compels us to act.

just yesterday, 18 experts in national security strongly endorsed the revised legislation that we have introduced. the aspen homeland security group made up of officials from both republican and democratic administrations and chaired by former secretary chertoff and former congresswoman jane harman urged the senate to adopt a program of voluntary cybersecurity standards and strong positive incentives for critical infrastructure to implement those standards. and this group called for action on our bill, saying this country is already being hurt by foreign cyber intrusions, and the possibility of a devastating cyber attack is real.

congress must act now. now, mr. president, you have heard some members of this body say that somehow this process has been rushed or this bill inadequately considered. nothing could be further from the truth. since 2005, seven years ago, our homeland security committee alone has held ten hearings on cybersecurity. other senate committees have also held hearings for a total of 25 hearings since 2009, not to mention numerous briefings that the presiding officer and senator mikulski from maryland

have helped to convene, classified briefings for any member to attend. in 2010, chairman lieberman, senator carper, and i introduced our cybersecurity bill which was reported by our committee later that same year. as i indicated, we've been working with chairman rockefeller to merge our bill with legislation that he has championed, which was reported by the commerce committee. we've also worked very closely with senator fein, an -- senator feinstein, an expert on information sharing. the bill we are urging our colleagues to proceed to today is the product of these efforts. it also incorporates substantial changes based on the feedback from the private sector, our colleagues, and the

administration. this new bill is a good-faith effort to address the concerns raised by members on both sides of the aisle by establishing a framework that relies upon the expertise of government and the innovation of the private sector. it improves privacy protections that americans expect from their government. it also reflects many concepts proposed by senators kyl, whitehouse, the presiding officer, blunt, coats, graham, mikulski, blumenthal, and coons. we have revised our bill in a very substantial way. we have abandoned the approach which i still believe to be a good idea of mandatory

standards, and instead, we have adopted a voluntary approach to standards. this is a significant change from our initial bill, and it was one that was promoted by senator kyl and senator whitehouse's group. the new version encourages owners of critical infrastructure to voluntarily adopt the cybersecurity practices in exchange for various incentives for entities complying with these best practices. this was also one of the primary recommendations of the house republican cyber task force. these incentives include liability protection against punitive damages, and i for one am open to making that a more robust liability protection. they include the opportunity to

receive expedited security clearances, eligibility for prioritized technical assistance from the government, and access to timely cyber threat information held by the government. these major changes from the approach that we initially proposed demonstrates our willingness to adopt alternatives recommended in good faith by our colleagues, and we are still open to changes to the bill. our bill also includes strong information-sharing provisions that promote voluntary information sharing within the private sector and the government, while ensuring that privacy and civil liberties are protected. and, again, we incorporated some suggestions from the democratic side of the aisle to strengthen these provisions. to be sure, more information

sharing is essential to improving our understanding of the risks and threats, but let us be clear -- more information sharing, while absolutely essential, is not sufficient to ensure that our nation's vital critical infrastructure is protected. and if you surveyed the vast majority of experts in this field, they will tell you that to pass a bill that only provides for more information sharing does not begin to accomplish the job that must be done to better secure our nation from this threat. now, with 85% of our nation's

critical infrastructure owned by the private sector, government obviously must work with the private sector, and our bill, both our original bill and our revised bill, has always envisioned a partnership between government and the private sector. we have a very stringent definition of what constitutes covered critical infrastructure. it is infrastructure whose disruption could result in truly catastrophic cons sequences. -- consequences. now, what do i mean about that? i'm talking about mass casualties or mass evacuations or severe degradation of our national security, or a serious

blow to our economy. that's the kind of disruption that we're talking about. so obviously those who have claimed that every company or every part of our infrastructure is going to be considered as critical infrastructure have not read the definition in our bill. but here's more evidence of why we must act. a study done in 2011 by the computer security firm mcafee and csis revealed that approximately 40% of the companies surveyed, the critical infrastructure companies, were not regularly patching and updating their

software, despite the fact that these safeguards are among the most basic and widely known cybersecurity risk mitt dpaition practices. -- mitigation practices. we've even found reports where companies haven't bothered to change the default password that came with the industrial control software. in many cases, the control devices used to operate our nation's most critical infrastructure are inherently insecure. a "washington post" special report last month noted that security researchers found that six out of seven control system devices are -- quote -- "riddled with hardware and software flaws"-- end quote. and that some included back

doors that enabled hackers download passwords or side step security completely. another front page story in the post earlier this month highlighted the fact that as technological advances have allowed everyone from plant managers to hospital nurses to control their systems remotely via the internet, these vital systems have become even more vulnerable to cyber attacks. to prove the point, the story described how a security researcher was able to easily steal passwords from a provider that connects unless of -- millions of these systems to the internet. mr. president, these examples illustrate that far too many critical infrastructure owners are not taking even the most

basic measures to protect their systems. and this is simply dangerous and unacceptable to the security of our country. these basic practices need not be expensive. in most cases, they're not expensive. and i'll tell you, they're a lot less costly than the consequences of a breach, not to mention a major cyber attack. a recent report by verizon, the secret service, and other international law enforcement agencies analyzed 855 data breaches and found that 96 were not difficult to pull up, and 97% of them could have been prevented through fairly simple and inexpensive means.

mr. president, the point is we must act, and we must act now. we cannot afford to wait for a cyber 9/11 before taking action on this legislation. in all the years that i have been working to identify vulnerabilities facing our country in the area of homeland security, i cannot identify another area where i believe that the threat is greater and that we have done less. i urge my colleagues to listen to the wisdom of former homeland security secretary michael chertoff and former n.s.a. chief

general maden. they -- general hayden. they wrote the following. "we carry the burden of knowing that 9/11 might have been averted with the intelligence that existed at the time. we dot want to be in the same position again when cyber 9/11 hits. it is not a question of whether this will happen. it is a question of when. and, mr. president, this time all the dots have been connected. this time we know that attacks are occurring against our internet systems, our cyber systems each and every day. this time the warnings from all across the board are loud and

clear. i urge our colleagues to heed these warnings and to support the motion to proceed to the cybersecurity bill. thank you, mr. president. mr. lieberman: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. lieberman: i thank the chair. mr. president, i thank my dear friend and ranking member on the homeland security committee for her excellent, thoughtful statement. i thank senator rockefeller, chair of the commerce committee, for his, i thought, compelling statement on behalf of proceeding and of course on behalf of the underlying bill. i think these two statements really set the table for the debate that will follow in the next several days. within the next day or two, certainly no later than friday, we will vote on the motion to proceed to the cybersecurity act

of 2012. i appeal to our colleagues to come together across party lines and vote to proceed as a way of saying that we recognize exactly what senator rockefeller and senator collins said. we have a problem here. we are vulnerable to cyber attack. it's not, again, just speculative. we are being attacked. we are being robbed every day through cyber space. and we are not adequately defended. it's as simple as that. part of the problem, as my colleagues have said, in the challenge is that 80% to 85% of our critical infrastructure in this country is privately owned. that's the american way. that's the way it ought to be. but that privately owned infrastructure is vulnerable now to attack by our enemies. and we have to work together, public and private owners,

republicans and democrats, liberals and conservatives, americans all, to figure out a way to say to the private owners of critical private infrastructure, you've got to do more to protect our security, to protect our prosperity. and that's what this bill is all about. my colleagues have described the challenge, the inadequacy of the current defenses, the work that's been done on our bill, the compromises that have been made all along the way. i thank the occupant of the chair, the senator from rhode island, senator whitehouse, senator kyl from arizona, the others who worked with them on a bipartisan basis to help us find common ground. if i may say -- and i'm about to close this part of the debate and yield to my colleagues who are on the floor -- this question of cybersecurity is, again, a test of whether this

great deliberative body still has the capability to come together and solve our nation's most serious problems. we had a couple of votes today. i suppose some people can say they were show votes. i took them seriously. but they all involved the terrible fiscal shape our country's in. $16 trillion in national debt. i mean, i can't -- earlier in my life i couldn't believe we would come to this point. and why have we? because we haven't been willing to make tough decisions. we haven't been willing to work across party lines to do some things that might be politically controversial to fix a problem that we have so the problem gets tougher and tougher to fix. this is another one. usually even in the most partisan and ideologically rigid times, when it comes to our

national security, we put our party labels aside and our party loyalties aside, and we've acted based on our loyalty to our country, to the oath of office we took to protect and defend thought our ideology or our party, but to protect and defend the constitution of the united states, our freedom. and that is as much in jeopardy from cyber attack as any other source of threat to our country. so, i'm, i appreciate the opening statements that have been made. i'm actually optimistic, very optimistic about the vote on the motion to proceed that will occur in the next day or two. and i'm increasingly hopeful that we're going to pass before we break for august a strong cybersecurity bill. it's not going to be the bill

that senator collins, senator rockefeller, senator feinstein and i started out with. we've compromised along the way. but, you know, mr. president, then i'll yield, i have in my office in a very prominent place a picture of two of connecticut's representatives to the constitutional convention. sherman and ellsworth. i have it there because these two were the creators, the source of the so-called connecticut compromise. some people erroneously refer to it as the great compromise. the correct title is the connecticut compromise. this was the conflict between the states that had a lot of population and the smaller states. how were they going to be represented in this new congress? and sherman and ellsworth came up with a great compromise. we'll have one body -- the senate -- where every state has two representatives and another body in the house will be

represented by population. i always like to say to people the very institution that we are privileged to be members of was created as a result of a compromise. generally speaking, this congress, which represents, you know, 300 million-plus people, 310 million now, extraordinarily diverse in every way, you can't succeed here, we can't get things done if people say "i must get 100% of what i want on this bill or i'm going to vote against it." so that's the way we have felt, particularly -- and that's why we've compromised, particularly because of the urgency of the threat and the urgency of the cyber threat which is real, present and growing. senator collins and i felt very

strongly we want to get something started. it can't be anything. it has to be real. s. 3414 is real. it will be effective. it's no longer mandatory. the standards are no longer mandatory, but there are enough incentives in here. and the very fact that there will be standards, private-sector generated but approved by governmental body, i think will create tremendous inducements -- yeah, even maybe pressure on c.e.o.'s of private operators, of critical private infrastructure to adopt those standards and implement them in their business or else, god forbid, in case of attack they will be subject to enormous, probably a corporation-ending liability. i'm very encouraged, thanks again to a lot of good work done by a lot of people, that we've started today, the lead sponsors of the -- other bill, the lead

i.t., the lead sponsors of this bill, the cybersecurity act of 2012, and the group that's been working so hard, bipartisan group to bring us together. we did come together today. we're going to meet again tomorrow morning. and i think we're involved in a collaborative process that will not only lead to the passage of cybersecurity legislation this year that will be effective to protect our national security and prosperity, but will in its way prove to the american people that we're still capable here in the senate of coming together across party lines to fix a problem; in this case to protect our great country. so with that and knowing we'll be back tomorrow, i yield the floor and i thank the chair. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. mr. franken: mr. president, i plan to speak on cybersecurity tomorrow, and i thank chairman

lieberman, chairman rockefeller, chairman feinstein and senator collins for their work on this very important issue, and also all the other senators who have worked so hard on this, including the presiding officer. but i ask to speak this evening as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. franken: i rise today to talk about loss. i know i speak for all minnesotans when i say how shocked and saddened we have been by the loss of life in colorado. our hearts go out to the families and friends of those who died and for those who were wounded in that massacre. anyone who has lost before can only feel outrage, horror and profound sadness. so many of those who died were so young. a number died heroically shielding a loved one from the

mad man's bullet. so much grief, so much suffering is just unspeakable. the one hopeful lesson we can draw from this tragedy comes from the stories of courage and selflessness we've heard about those who were in the theater and the first responders and the outpouring from the community of aurora and the rest of the nation. minnesota unfortunately has also seen its share of senseless violence, something no state is immune to. hopefully out of this tragedy we can draw lessons that will make this, these kinds of tragedies far less common. but today i've come to the floor to talk about a personal loss to me and to so many of his friends and family and fans, a minnesotan who brought so much laughter, so much joy to his fellow minnesotans and to

millions and millions of americans. my friend, tom davis, died last thursday after he was diagnosed three years ago with cancer. i had the privilege to be tom's comedy partner and best friend for over 20 years. we started working together in high school in minnesota and did standup together for years and were among two of the original writers for "sat night live." -- for saturday night live. i spoke with tom's mom jean last thursday not long after tom died. she told me how fondly she remembered the laughter that came from the basement when tom and i started writing together in high school over 40 years ago. that's what i remember about tom: his laughter. i last saw tom about two weeks ago at his home in hudson, new york. dan akroyd who collaborated so often with tom, was there too

with his wife donna and tom's wife mimi. we laughed and laughed. tom's humor was always sardonic. as you might expect, it was a little more sardonic that day than usual. but his humor also had a sweetness about it. we laughed, but tom told us that he was ready to go. he faced death with great humor and courage. tom created laughter. the obituary cited tom's body of work, some of it. he and dan akroyd created the cone heads, nick the lounge singer and on and on and on. this started an outpouring of blogging on the internet, people writing about the tom and the laughs he brought them. i was happy to see him get his due. people called him an original. he was.

they called him a brilliant comedian. he was. since last thursday i've been hearing from our friends and colleagues, how tom's voice was unique, how so often his stuff came seemingly from out of nowhere. how tom had come up with the biggest laugh of the season in the rewrite of this sketch or that one. or how tom had been the first to nail ed mcmahon's attitude when he and i did khomeini the magnificent and how tom was suft suft -- such a loyal and generous friend. people would always ask me and tom what our favorite moment was on "saturday night live." we worked on so many sketches that it was just impossible to single anything out. both of us would always say that our favorite memory was rolling on the floor, the 17th floor

at 30 rock. rolling on the floor laughing at 2:00 in the morning or 3:00 in the morning at something that someone wrote or at a character someone had just invented. this was that moment of creation. there was the laugh at whatever it was that one of us had come up with combined with the joy that you knew you had something. this is your job. woody allen once said that writing comedy is either easy or it's impossible. when it's impossible, it can be agony, let me tell you. when it's easy, when you're laughing, when you're rolling on the floor literally, when danny or billy or bulushi or steve martin or any of the many just hilarious people that we had the

privilege to work with would come up with something that just made you explode with laughter and roll on the floor there on the 17th floor, that was just pure joy. tom was an improvisational genius, the first public stage we performed at was dudley's. it was the minneapolis of second city based on the same improvisational techniques. tom and i when we were in high school did stand-up there. but while i went off to college, tom joined the company at dudley's and when i came back, i saw that he had mastered improv and mastered it hilariously. now, as a writing team, tom and i brought different strengths to our craft. sometimes we'd get stuck and tom

would find an object. the third year of s.n.l., tom and i were watching tv and we saw yulia child cut herself while doing a cooking segment on i think it was the "today" show. so we wrote a sketch that danny performed brilliantly that is now known as "julia child bleeding to death." the sketch worked so well that when they installed the julia child exhibit at the national museum of american history, in addition to her tv kitchen set -- i think this was at her insistence because she loved it so much -- they included a monitor with the sketch of her bleeding to death on saturday night live. now, when tom and i were writing the sketch, we could not find an ending, and tom found an object,

the phone -- the phone hanging on the wall of julia child's cooking set. and i don't actually think there was one. tom just found it. that's something improv artists do when they are on the stage. they find objects to work with. so danny, as julia child in the sketch, is spurting blood and julia is trying everything, explaining how to make a tourniquet out of a chicken bone and a dish towel, only that doesn't work, and how to use the chicken liver as a natural co[^agulant. nothing is working. she's losing blood. so in desperation, she sees the phone on the wall and turn to it she says "always have the emergency number written down on the phone. oh, it isn't. well, i know what it is. it is 911. she punches 911 and she realizes it is a prop phone and throws it down, sort of in disgust and then she's gettings would subsidy and then starts rambling

on about eating chicken chopped liver on a ritz cracker as a child and finally she colt lapsed and as she's about to die, she says one more "save the liver." it was a tour de force by donny. when i was with danny and tom a couple weeks ago, we started talking about this somehow, and danny said that he remembers me there under the counter pumping the blood. only i wasn't the one pumping the blood. it was tom. and i remember that that was something of a union issue because that's a special effect, pumping blood. pumping the blood to get exactly the right pressure so that danny could release the spurts at precisely the right time. now, every once in a while, the special effects guy or the sound effects guy would let a writer do the effect because it was all

about the timing, come immediateic timing. and also they liked tom. everybody liked tom. and the special effects guy knew that tom knew exactly what to do and it was all about teamwork with danny, who was also controlling the spurting while tom was controlling the pressure. and, man, it was hilarious. soy now, this is live tv -- now, this is live tv. we did hundreds and hundreds of sketches together, a lost stuff that was just so -- a lot of stuff that was just so tombed that it was funny, and we just had so much fun. and tom and i toured together all over the country. i told senator johanns, my friend and colleague from nebraska, that tom and i played shovron state twice, twice. and yesterday we had a session

in which senator sessions introduced someplace in alabama where tom and i played. we did a gig in south dakota to six students because they booked us by mistake during spring break. there were five members of the basketball team who couldn't afford to go back east for the break and a sixth guy who had been grounded because he had gotten caught smoking pot freshman year and they wouldn't let him leave campus except during the summer, for summer vacation. i think this was his junior year. i think tom and i played 45 states. when we flew, we always booked ourselves in aisle seats across from each other, the c and d seats so we could talk to each other. and tom would always get on first and find our row and if there was a pretty girl in the middle seat of one side, he'd

sit next to her. and i'd sit next to the fat, sweaty guy in the mesh shirt, which by the way, i think should not be allowed on the one hand planes. i plan to introduce legislation on that. now, this went on for years. tom would board first and get to our row and take the aisle seat next to an attractive woman or quiet-looking, slender man, and i'd sit next to the large, loud guy who looked like he wanted to talk through the entire flight. and i thought, what a coincidence. tom's aisle seat is always next to the more desirable seatmate. and then one day finally i checked my ticket stub and i saw that tom had taken my seat. and that's when i realized he'd been doing this for years. i said, tom, you've been -- and he said, well, yeah, i was just waiting for you to figure it out. now, i really to blame myself.

tom had played me and it was actually my fault for being kind of a trusting idiot. but tom saved my butt on occasion. we used to go fishing up in the boundary waters, the wilderness area between northern minnesota and canada. tom was expert with a canoe, and i wasn't -- i really wasn't. once we went up there in october. it was kind of cold, but we were catching a lot of walleye and having a great time, and there were three of us, me and tom and our friend jeff. we had put in just one canoe. oned third evening i decided to fish from this point on this island and i cast out and got my line caught on something. so i decided to go out alone by

myself with the canoe and untangle the line. so i'm halfway out and i get caught in this current and start getting carried away from the island that we're camped on, and i start calling for help, and -- now you have to understand we're in the qui quiddico in opennessn october in canada and we have not seen another human being in the three days that we've been there. so tom and jeff come running and yelling and cursing at me because, if i didn't make it back with the canoe, they were pretty much stuck on this island for the winter. and i'm probably dead because i have no gear, nothing. just the paddle which isn't doing my any good at this point. and this is where tom's improvisational skills came in

really handy because he talked me back. he was screaming and cursing, but he talked me out of the current that was carrying me away to my certain death, and i was able to circle back and get to the point, exhausted but so relieved, and maybe that's why i cut him some slack when he played me on the aisle seats years later. now, speaking of cold, tom and i were huge vikings fans. we'd go to the old metropolitan stadium during the bud grant years when grant would not allow heaters on the sideline even when it was below zero. now, i once asked bud grant why he did that, and he said, there are certain things people can do when they're cold. tom and i were there on a very cold winter afternoon at the

vikings-cowboys playoff game, the one where roger staubach threw the hail mary drew peerson pushed off on and he did push off. senator hutchison, senator cornyn go back to the videotape when peerson pushed off, it was offensive pass interference and the vikings should have won that and gone do the super bowl. that's how i and tom saw it, and that's how the fan who threw the whiskey bottle from the bleachers and knocked the ref out saw it. tom and i both saw the bottle blinking in the cold winter sun, as it arced from the bleachers and we were stunned when it hit the ref right in the forehead. that was not minnesota-nice. tom and i suffered through four super bowls losses and through last season, as sick as he was, tom watched our vikings and

complained bitterly to me on the phone later on sunday. tom and i went to a lot of grateful dead shows together, more than even senator leahy. tom and i went to a lot of new year's eve dead shows. this year i went to new york to celebrate new year's with tom and mimi at their home, celebrate what we knew was probably going to be his last. and at midnight we turned on the dead and we danced. now, unlike me, tom became an accomplished guitarist. he could sit in with any rock or blues band. tom was a terrible, terrible student in high school. but the fact is, he was a renaissance man. he loved to read history and philosophy and fiction. he devoted a lot of his last years to his art, sculpting solely from found objects from

the creek that ran by his house in upstate new york. yes, tom was an coverag an orig. some time ago tom and i talked about writing something for this occasion. but about a year or so ago he wrote a piece for a literary magazine that said what needed to be said. it was tom and his take on what he was facing. it is called "the dark side of death." so, i decided to read from it with a few edits for the senate floor, and i ask that the piece in its entirety, with some other edits, be included in the record. the presiding officer: without objection, it will be included in the record. mr. franken: thank you, mr. president. "the dark side of death" by tom davis. the good news, my chemotherapy is working and i'm still buying

green bananas. i've lost about 50 pounds. i needed to lose 49. false hope is my enemy, also self-pity, which went out the window when i saw children with cancer. i try to embrace the inevitable with whatever grace i can muster and find the joy in each day, and i'm -- i've always been good at that. but now i'm getting really good at that. i wake up in the morning delighted to be waking up, read and write and feed the birds, watch sports on tv, accepting the fact that in the foreseeable future i will be a dead person. i want to remind that you dead people are people, too. there are good dead people and bad dead people. some of my best trends are dead people. dead people have fought in every war. we're all going to try it sometime. fortunately for me, i've always

enjoyed mystery and solitude. many people in my situation say it's been my worst and best year. if that's sounds like cliche, you don't have cancer. i am grateful to have gained not just intellectual empathy. i have gone through life without suffering. i had to turn inward. people from all o -- from all over my life are reconnecting to me and i tried to take responsibility for my deeds, good and bad. i think i've finally grown up. it is odd to have so much time orchestrate the process of my own death. i'm improvising. i've never done this before so far as i know. ironically, i'll probably outlive one or two people to whom i've already said goodbye. my life has been rife with irony. why stop now?

as an old malthusean liberal, i've always believed that the source of all mankind's problems is overpopulation. i'm finally going to do something about it. tom faced death with humor and courage. rest in peace. thank you. thank you, mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: the senate passed a farm bill a few weeks ago, pretty good farm bill. the house agriculture committee has reported out of its committee a farm bill.

and now the discussion of whether or not we have a farm bill is a decision to be made by the leadership of the house whether or not a farm bill should come up. so i want to speak about the necessity of a farm and nutrition bill being passed. and it is called a farm and nutrition because about 80% of a farm bill expenditures is related to the food stamp program. if we can get this bill completed and to the president's desk, it will be the eighth farm bill that i have had a chance to participate in. every five years or so, congress debates, changes, argues over and ultimately passes a farm and nutrition bill, not always of

that title but pretty much of that content. this time should be no differe different. we need to get the job done. i understand that there are folks who want to see more cuts here or there and there are folks who want to spend more here or there. those are very important discussions to have. we should have a healthy debate on how to tweak, reform, reshape the policies in the bill. whether it's in regard to programs effecting farmers, the program of the bill that receives the overwhelming share of the dollars, or, as i said, that's the nutrition title. we had those debates in the senate agriculture committee. we had those debates on the senate floor. the house agriculture committee has had those debates and now i

hope their product can be brought up on the senate floor. in fact, i'm more than happy to debate these various issues with some of my friends on the house agriculture committee, why setting high target prices, as they did, is the wrong direction for congress to take. and how the house should adopt the payment limit reforms the senate has embraced, provisions of the farm bill in the senate that i got included. and i'm sure many on the house agriculture committee would be more than happy to debate with me the merits of having a more balanced approach to where we find savings in the bill, by taking an equal portion from the nutrition title and the farm-related titles. we should find more savings for sure than what's contained in the senate-passed farm bill, including savings more out of

the nutrition title, as the house ago cull committethehouses been able to do. but the fact is we have to keep moving the ball forward, regardless of how we feel about all these separate parts of a farm bill. we need to get to finality. we have a drought gripping this nation and that is going to be tough on many americans and it's going to affect every american, not just the 2% of the people that are farmers because you know it's going to cause food prices to go up. but it's drawn -- the drought has drawn into focus just how important our farmers are to our food supply. americans enjoy a safe and abundant food supply. that is because of the hard work and dedication of so manying families throughout our

country -- so many farming families throughout our country. sometimes weather conditions or other events outside of the farmers' control can make it difficult to keep farming. farmers aren't looking for a handout, but when faced with conditions such as a near-historic drought, many farmers may need assistance to get through. men and women go into farming for all soforts reason sorts of reasons, but at the heart of farming is a desire to be successful in producing an abundant crop to feed the nation and the world. farmers have many tools to manage their risks so that they can keep producing food. they've adopted advanced technology, such as drought-resistant crops. farmers buy crop insurance. in my state of iowa, about 92% of the farmers have crop insurance.

livestock farmers help animals manage heat by building climate-controlled buildings. but when faced with weather conditions such as we are currently dealing with, even the best-laid plans may not keep the farming operation afloat. that's where the federal government comes in. we help provide a safety net. let me say just how that drought affects. i just read in the newspaper something put out by some government agency that said about 55% of the land mass of the united states is in a drought condition right now. in my state of iowa and maybe other midwestern states, on an average of about 22 years, we face drought situations that's catastrophic for crops.

actually, the last one was in 1988 so now we're having one in my state of iowa. that's 24 years. but on average, it happens about that long. so you -- you see the need for something that's beyond the farmers' control. can't do anything if it doesn't rain when it's supposed to rain. and right now is one of those most important times when crops need rain. so then why do we provide this safety net? because the american people understand just how important the production of food is and farmers doing that production to our food supply. it's a matter of national security. it's been said that we're only nine meals away from a revolution.

if people were without food, this argument goes, they would do whatever it takes to get food for themselves and their families. it's only been three years, i believe, that some places in the world, where they had riots that were national problems -- not just local problems but national problems -- because of a shortage of rice. and that's a staple in many countries. i suppose particularly of asia. so you've got to have a stable food supply if you're going to have -- if you're want going toe not going to have social upheaval. the need for food can also be made by looking at military history. in other words, food supply is very important for our national security. now, it may be a joke but napoleon supposedly said an army marches on its stomachs.

but we also know from modern history -- if you consider world war ii yet modern history -- why this very day, 60 or 70 years after world war ii, why the japanese and the german protect their farmers so much with safety nets of various sorts, because they know what it was like during wartime not to have adequate food as a part of national security. a well-fed military is one ready to fight and to defend. there's nothing more basic than making sure that the nation's food supply is secure, whether it's to provide -- or to prevent social upheaval or for our national security or maybe for a lot of other reasons. in order to have stability in our food system, we need to have the safety net available to assist farmers through the tough

times so that they can keep producing food. i've not always agreed with the policies set in each and every farm bill congress has passed of those eight that i've been involved in. in fact, there have been times in which i voted against individual farm bills because i didn't agree with the policy being set. however, i support, to a large extent, what we accomplished in the senate-passed farm bill last month. obviously i didn't agree with everything, particularly in the lack of savings that we captured from the nutrition title, but for the most part we passed a bill that embraced real reform in the farm program that it still provides an effective safety net. and whether it's the senate bill that cut back $23 billion from present farm program, or whether

it's the house bill that seems to cut back $35 billion, i'll bet this is the only piece of legislation that can possibly get to the president's desk this year that's going to save money from the -- the program if it had just been simply extended. and i would think that people that want to set a record of fiscal conservatism for the upcoming election would be very anxious to take up a bill that are -- that the congressional budget office saves either $23 billion or $35 billion. so i say to -- mostly to the other body, because that -- right now that's where the action is and where we hope will take place -- i say we should not delay any longer. the farm bill is too important

to all americans to leave it in limbo. we need to get a farm bill to the president and that farm bill is approximately 80% nutrition programs, probably benefiting most of the people that are not -- most of the people that benefits are not farmers. and then the other 20% for a safety net for farmers but also for all the programs that the department of agriculture administers. i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: .

quorum call:

mr. whitehouse: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: i ask unanimous consent that the pending quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: thank you, mr. president. before i go into the closing business, let me just say that i had the pleasure of presiding in this body during the remarks that were just made by the distinguished chairman of the homeland security committee,

senator lieberman of connecticut, the distinguished ranking member of that committee, senator collins of maine, and the distinguished chairman of the commerce committee and until recently chairman of the intelligence committee, senator rockefeller of west virginia, and i simply want briefly to add my voice to theirs and echo the three points that they emphasized. one, we absolutely must take action on cybersecurity. two, it is a genuine and undeniable matter of our american national security. and three, we cannot claim to have done the job, we cannot claim to have even have attempted the job seriously if we don't address the question of the critical infrastructure on which american life and our economy depend that is in private hands and therefore cannot be protected under the

existing regime and place protecting our government and military networks. we have to solve that problem. anything that does not solve that problem is a clear failure of our duty as national security experts from republican and democratic administrations alike have very clearly explained. mr. president, let me ask unanimous consent that we proceed to a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: let me ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to calendar number 464, s. 285. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar numbered 464, s. 285, a bill for the relief of sobaci chuck wookie. the presiding officer: the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. whitehouse: i ask unanimous consent the committee-reported amendment be agreed to, the bill as amended be read a third time and passed, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate and any statements

related to the bill be placed in the record as if read. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: i ask unanimous consent that the senate now proceed to the immediate consideration of calendar number 471, h.r. 5872. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar numbered 471, h.r. 5872, an act to require the president to provide a report detailing the sequester required by the budget control act of 2011 on january 2, 2013. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. whitehouse: i ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table and that any statements relating to the bill appear at this point in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: finally, mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m. on thursday, july 26. that following the prayer and pledge, the journal of proceedings be approved to date,

the morning business be deemed expired and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day. that the majority leader be recognized and that the first hour be equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the majority controlling the first half and the republicans controlling the final half. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: mr. president, today the majority leader filed cloture on the motion to proceed to s. 3414, the cybersecurity act of 2012. if no agreement otherwise is reached, that vote would be on friday. however, we hope to reach an agreement to hold that vote tomorrow. if there is no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it adjourn under the previous order. the presiding officer: the senate stands adjourned until thursday, july 26, 9:30 a.m.

mr. reid: mr. president, republicans' tax hike on the middle class has just been defeated. their plan would have raised taxes by about a thousand dollars for 25 million

middle-class families. while giving millionaires an average of $160,000 pay benefits, tax benefits, a tax break. let's look at that. what their bill would do is raise taxes for 25 million middle-class families by about a thousand dollars a year, and it would give millionaires $160,000 tax break. those numbers are staggering. their bill would have raised taxes on parents trying to pay for college, on families, especially large families with children, so it's no wonder a majority of the united states senate opposed that legislation. in just a short time, there will be a bill that will pass to cut

taxes for 98% of americans, including every middle-class taxpayer and more than 97% of small businesses. this plan, proposed by president obama, would cut taxes for 114 million american families. theirs raises taxes for 25 million middle-class families. this is the only bill that has a chance of becoming law, so it's the only plan that would actually give a middle-class family the security of avoiding their fiscal cliff. the house should take this legislation up and pass it. president obama believes we must keep taxes low for 98% of americans. democrats agree, so does a majority of americans. mr. president, the majority of americans, including the majority of republicans around this country, believe taxes should remain low for the middle class, but the top 2% should pay

their fair share to reduce the debt. the bill the senate is about to pass respects the will of the american people, including a majority of republicans in america outside the halls of this congress. members of congress, the republicans, disagree with the majority of republicans. the president, of course, has said he will sign the bill immediately. now republicans are threatening to hide behind yet another arcane procedural maneuver to stall this crucial legislation. they are threat toning do something. this will get the attention of the american people. they will say oh, no. mr. president, they are threatening to do something called we're going to blue slip this because revenue was originated in the house of representatives. mr. president, my colleagues have very short memories.

senate republicans are all too happy to bypass the procedural hoop when it suits their purposes. they're willing -- they're willing to go around it when it's time to reauthorize f.a.a. they're willing to sidestep it when we pass the violence against women. we did that here in the senate. they're willing to dodge it when we pass the transportation bill, which is so important to this country. but now their excuse for stalling a tax cut for 98% of the american people is an old procedural trick that the american public does not understand and rightfully so. if republicans in the house fail to act on this bill, taxes will rise by $2,200 for the typical middle-class family of four. that's $2,200 less to spend on gas, groceries, rent and life in general for these people. this tax hike on ordinary families couldn't come at a worse time, just as our economy is doing its utmost to get back

on its feet. republicans should not force middle-class families off their fiscal cliff to protect more wasteful giveaways to millionaires and billionaires, an average of $160,000 a year per millionaire. democrats believe this country can't afford more budget-busting giveaways for the top 2% of earners. mr. president, again, republicans in america agree with us. it's only here in the senate that the republicans don't agree. but that's a debate we're willing to have. house republicans need not hold tax cuts for the middle class hostage in order to have that debate. they can and should pass our middle-class tax cut immediately. once we give middle-class middle-class families security, we can spend the next five months debating whether wealthy families need more tax breaks. we know how the american people feel -- just like we do. mr. mcconnell: mr. president? first of all, let me welcome the

vice president here today, our good friend who served for so many years in the senate. it reminds me of the negotiatio that he and i conducted in december of 2010. i got a call from the vice president one day and he said the president thought we ought to talk over the possibility of extending the current tack rates for everyone because the economy is not doing very well and the worst thing we could do would be to raise taxes on anyone in the middle of this economic situation. i said mr. vice president, i think that's something we would be interested in. and so the vice president and i negotiated for a period of time and agreed that because the economy was not doing well in december, 2010, we ought to extend the current tax rates for everyone. i can remember the signing ceremony. i was there. the majority leader was not. the speaker of the house was

not. the president made a speech in signing an extension of the current tax rates for everyone that i could have made myself. 40 members of the senate on the democratic side voted for it. now, today my colleagues, the economy is growing slower than it was in december of 2010. so we know this is not about the economy. we know this is about the election. we all know there is an election going on. there is a politician from time to time that practiced here in the senate. i'm not offended by that. but what the american people, i think, would like to hear from us is a response to the economic situation. this proposal guarantees that taxes are going to go up on roughly a million of our most successful small businesses. over 50% of small business

income, 25% of the work force will be affected by it. it guarantees the taxes go up on capital gains, on dividends, which provides the income for a huge number of our senior citizens. this is a uniquely bad idea. it may poll well, as my friend, the majority leader, indicated, but of course the fact that he needed to mention that illustrates the point. this is more about the election than it is about the economy. so i would predict there would probably be bipartisan opposition to this proposal. i'm sure a few arms have been twisted in order to get the result. vice president is at a disadvantage, he can't speak, being an occupant of the chair. but in this particular instance,

in this particular instance, he is actually better not to because he would have the dilemma of trying to explain the difference between the economic situation the country confronts today and the condition the country confronted in december of 2010 when the economy was doing better. so be grateful, i say to my friend, the vice president. this is a debate i don't think you would want to lead. so with that, my colleagues and friends, i urge a no vote on this very, very bad idea for the u.s. economy. mr. reid: mr. president? mr. president? in 2010, the country was staring at what had taken place the prior eight years. eight million jobs lost. what's happened in the years since 2010 that my friend, the republican leader, talks about? this administration has created

4.5 million jobs. we haven't -- we haven't filled the hole all that we lost during the eight years of the prior president, but we've made some progress. we all acknowledge we need to do more, but don't ever compare, don't ever compare today with 2010. now, mr. president, first of all, everyone understands all you folks who love to give tax cuts to the millionaires, our bill does that also. the first $250,000 that they make is -- they are treated just like a middle-class family. now, i would also point everyone to this. i've talked about the republicans around the country supporting this legislation. of course they do. they know the deficit needs to be handled and they know that about a trillion dollars is what our legislation will do to fill the hole of the debt. but, mr. president, also people

who are in this great country of ours, who have done so well, they understand that they are supposed to contribute more. they know that. my friend doesn't like to hear polls, but let me give him another one. 65% of these really rich people are willing to pay more taxes. again, the people who are unwilling to do this are people who signed a pledge for this person, grover norquist. and remember, there was a little vacillating about a month ago, so he came up here and had somebody renew their vows with him. so, mr. president, we are on the side of the angels. we're on the side of the american people because this legislation that is going to pass is what is good for the american people. i ask that we have a vote now. mr. mcconnell: mr. president, let me briefly add --

let me just briefly add. i listened carefully to what my friend, the majority leader, said. he once again was making it clear this is about the campaign -- about the campaign and not about the economy. but if you listen carefully to the rhetoric, what essaying here is these million businesses didn't create this success, that we somehow need to take this money because we'll spend it better on their behalf. now, i know my colleague is going to get the last word, and that's fine, i'm happy for him to have it, but the fact of the matter is this -- the economy is in worse shape today than it was in december of 2010, worse shape today. the growth rate is slower. the president signed this bill, advocated its passage back then because the economy didn't need

to get hit with a big tax increase. the growth rate is slower today. the economic situation remains largely the same. the worst thing we could do in the middle of this economic condition is to pass this tax increase. now, my friend, the majority leader, can have the last word and then we'll be happy to go to a vote. mr. reid: mr. president? mr. president? the vice president: the majority leader. mr. reid: they may have different newspapers in kentucky than i read. i get my nevada clips every day. i try to read some papers from back here. we have now 28 months, 28 months of job growth in the private sector, 20 months in a row. that's pretty good. now, mr. president, this legislation is about the debt. it's about the debt. we have to do something about the debt, and we have tried mightily to do that. we have tried mightily. we had the conrad-judd gregg

legislation. seven people who were republican senators who cosponsored that wouldn't vote for it and allow me to get it on the floor because they had adopted the republican leader's philosophy that the most important thing we can do is defeat president obama for re-election. then we went to simpson-bowles, which was a program we put together when we couldn't get that legislation, it was so good, by two of our best financial minds in the senate, judd gregg and kent conrad, and simpson-bowles didn't make it. then we had a series of talks with the president and this speaker. always, we could never quite get it done. why? even though my friend, and i care about him, john boehner, said i want to do big things, not little things. one of the little things he couldn't do is get his caucus to make just a little bit of revenue so we could make a big

deal, the grand bargain. then we tried the biden talks. the majority leader of the house of representatives walked out on those talks. th then we had the super committee. a week before, by statute, patty murray and her troops were supposed to offer legislation, i got a letter signed by virtually every republican senator saying no thanks, grover wins again. no revenues. so, mr. president, this is about our country, about doing something about a debt. it will contribute about a trillion dollars to the debt. that's not bad. mr. mcconnell: mr. president? mr. . mr. reid: here we go again. mr. mcconnell: i heard my good friend the majority leader say this is about the deficit. this would produce about enough revenue to operate the government for about a week. this would produce about enough revenue to operate the government for about a week.

this is not about the deficit or the debt. this is about the campaign. we all know there's a campaign going on, but why don't we do serious legislating here? no budget, no appropriation bills, no d.o.d. authorization bills. when are we going to actually pass things in the senate? this is a uniquely bad idea for the economy. the good news, i can say to to the american people, it isn't going to happen. today. it ought not to happen any time. this is part of the fiscal cliff that we're facing at the end of the year. the chairman of the fed is concerned about it, the congressional budget office, which republicans certainly don't run, is concerned about it. we've heard talk on the other

side we should have thelma and louise economics. just drive the country right off the cliff. all get in the car and go right off the cliff together. and see what it's like. look, the american people know a campaign is going on but why don't we in here try to do something important for the country now? the campaign will take care of itself. this is not a serious piece of legislation because it's not going anywhere, and thank goodness it's not going anywhere because it would be bad for the economy. the single worst thing we could do to the country. mr. reid: mr. president? the vice president: the majority leader. mr. reid: required reading for decades now has been george orwell. college students now read it just like i did when i was in college. george orwell.

he came to the conclusion that we would arrive at a time where up was down and down was up. and that's what my friend the republican leader has done. if there were ever a statement that's orwellian, it's his. we haven't done the appropriation bill. do you think, just stop and think just a minute, do you think 85 filibusters had a thing to do with that? 85. we haven't done a budget. that is poppy cock. we have one. we did it, and my republican friends, i appreciate it, voted with us. we have our numbers right now and we could have done every appropriation bill, senator inouye marked them up, chairman inouye but we can't do them because we have to overcome 85 filibusters. and for my friend to talk about let's do something important, please. is this bill we're going to pass important? you bet it is.

and he said it wouldn't pay for the government for a week or whatever the number was. mr. president, over ten years it's a trillion bucks. one year, a hundred billion. that's even in las vegas not chump change. chump change. asked her about an egyptian what time is allowed in the country last month for meetings with government officials.

>> secretary napolitano, i would like to discuss the whole issue of the egyptian member of the islamic group here in the country and what is in the future has to go forward with representatives in the middle east. my understanding of the integration national the act is anyone who belongs to a designated terrorist organization before receiving a visa must apply and receive a waiver from the secretary of state and secretary of homeland security i know we have seen a number of them with secretary clinton signed one for a member of the iraqi national congress and this has been the procedure since 1996, 1997. if you are designated, if you belong to it you cannot come into the country without getting a waiver. my understanding is that an elected official in egypt was part of a delegation that came to washington, went to the white house, the national security council and met with members of

congress. .. my understanding also with all the information provided by your department in the letter to me, but there was no reason that said no way for what is required is because there's no derogatory information down. yet his own facebook page study

belong to a terrorist organization. the concern i have is this individual case is one thing, but as you see the results of the art spring, eject, libya, hopefully syria and other countries of the middle east, we have people coming to this country were attempting to come who may have been involved in the past peripheral or braille with various terrorist organizations. the administration and other administrations may feel some of these people can be dealt with, can be worked with. if that is to be done, it seemed to me would have to be an open process, a transparent process them aware congress and the people would know who would speed in this country, the fact is that when into giving this person a waiver. also both love of the decision is made. we went through situation where people in the state department they they were a farmer of the 1950s that castor was a jeffersonian democrat comest you cannot people making their decisions. my question to you is, who can

be state department, what homeland security initiate allowing someone from one of these organizations into the country, for instance, even if they're not designated as a foreign terrorist organization can you count the muslim brotherhood without going into detail maybe can tittered one way in syria. members of that may have different types of relationships with the organization. who will make those decisions and get a waiver and this congress going to be informed so you know who's allowed into the country and who is not and why a waiver is issued. again, in this case with all respect, it does not appear the spirit of the law was complied with, a self-proclaimed member of a foreign terrorist organization. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i think a couple of things. one is they think you are right in pointing out that as we move forward we are going to continue to have visitors to this country

that state department and others feel are useful to bring to the country to have discussions moving forward. who in the past or say they're members of a political party than in the past has been so designated. in the particular case you refer to, this was the state department collected group. a bridge is needed they are. he was vetted before he got a visa against all known terrorists and other databases for derogatory information none was found. as he entered the united states, we too fêted him against all of our holding, including terrorist and information from a variety of sources. no derogatory of his town. before he entered the white house, he was vetted a third time by the secret service. no derogatory information was found. sven mykonos and confident that

this was not a security breach in that sense. with respect to notification to congress about this, that is something i will have to look into. i don't know what the status of that was. within our organization, when we get a visitor like that. and we have had some in the past, it is usually a combination of counterterrorism group and a c. i guess they refused the information and then oftentimes -- not often times, but occasionally will come up to secretary. >> about the spending, the fact that his own facebook page, he said he was a member of the islamic group, a foreign terrorist organization. how did that escape the entire bidding process? >> mr. chairman, i think we have to have more nuanced about. we have to know, with the groupwise. is it now a political party? that is running the government of a country that has strong

ties with the united states quiet and if that is so, what is that the right information, content of the relationship from the substance of the relationship and the particular instance you raise. everyone has looked at this individual is self confident that he was not a security risk to the white house or to the united states. >> i think you proved my point. it may not have been right. if you blind to a foreign terrorist organization, the formal process by the waiver was going to be granite. if he was able, even though he had it on his face or page up onto a foreign terrorist organization that could have hundreds of people in the situation over the next several years coming and who may not albrecht on the facebook pages that they're a member, so raises serious questions to me as to how effective the vetting process is fourth opposed the decision was made and was made

without congress intended to be notified. again, if you applied for a waiver to have been granted, congress was left out of it and he was allowed in without a waiver. director olson, do you want to -- >> mr. chairman, substance and process -- and the substance there is no derogatory information. he was vetted multiple times by multiple departures. on the process, that's a fair point to make. >> a significant point because again, a person belongs to an organization and is allowed without applying for the waiver. we could be faced at the situation many times over the next several years, especially involving in libya, syria hopefully sometime. egypt will be a work in progress. i would really ask that you looked into and i hope the

decisions is not a policy obligation of keeping congress which again on the face of it appears to have been enclosing in the letter i sent to the department. i understand that alan at the white house asked if the blind sheik could be released. so the answer is no peer but when i asked what his position at the department of homeland security regarding any potential transfer or release of omar abdul lack and the architect of the first world trade attack on the cities and custody of the justice department. but if he's going to be released, homeland security is a real role to play in the department of homeland security and appears they do not answer the question about whether or not there's any intention at any time to release. >> i know of no such intention. >> you can feel secretary napolitano's congressional testimony from today tonight at 10:10 eastern here on c-span 2.

also on capitol hill today, treasury secretary tim geithner testified before the house financial services committee. he said the government is looking into interest rate manipulation by british banks during the 2008 financial crisis. >> mr. secretary, is widely reported that she discovered in 2007 at the world's biggest banks were manipulating libor. your recommendations made in may 2008 the following year indicated your recognition that there was an incentive to this reporter. that obviously raises substantial questions about the honesty of the libor submissions and the presence of fraud. wendy ju alert the u.s. treasury and the justice department of the possibility that libor was

manipulated or raked and to whom does she state those concerns? >> thank you, mr. chairman. in 2008, as the financial crisis i can subside and/or broader concerns about the financial constraints of banks, european banks had a tougher time raising dollars and those libor rates began to rise. there was concern in the market that the way the richard made affordable to misreporting. those concerns were widely available in the market and they were published in "the wall street journal" and the financial sites among other publications. at that time, in the spring of 2000 we took a careful look at these concerns. we thought these concerns were justified. and we took the initiative to bring those concerns to the attention of the broader u.s. regulatory community including agencies and responsibility for market manipulation and abuse. >> that included treasury and the justice department.

>> they breathe the crtc, ftc and the fact. >> how about the justice department? >> you were aware of the possibility of fraud. >> not just as the reports the banks were underreporting and misreporting, but the nature of the rate set in london overseen by the british bankers association is a rate that is an outrage of constructed average of estimates. principally by foreign banks of what they might pay to borrow and currencies of different maturities. >> three u.s. banks. >> three at that time, 316 and mouth rebate team. but we were aware of the risk that the way this was to sign to underreport that gave fans the opportunity to lay out about the

problem. >> and a human to the british regulators, but what action did you take and you were aware they took no action? >> again, let me explain what i did. it was not just to break the broader u.s. agencies, but to bring this to the british. i personally raised this with the governor of the bank of england and then i sent him a very detailed memorandum recommending a series of changes. >> let me ask you, he has denied having any avid and of misconduct, but according to what you supplied and, his testimony would not be correct. is that right? >> again, i thought that we did the importunate fully

appropriate thing to bring the attention not just to people in washington. not just the reporters, that the concerns in the market in the public domain, but also of the range of problems in the way this was designed to create vulnerability chemistry brought concerns to the attention and we felt -- and i still believe this, that it is really going to be on them to take responsibility for fixing this. >> he reported to the president's working group in may of 2008. what action if any of us take at that time to address concerns that libor was misreported? the existing of fraud? >> what the cftc did and roughly the same time frame is to initiate a confidential but far-reaching investigation, ultimately took four years, which resulted in a strong appropriately strong enforcers he saw announced earlier this month. ultimately the investigation brought in the ftc and justice. >> let me ask you this last

question. you used libor to set the aig $182 billion also the $100 billion tab. now we know those surrenders stated. does this work is an advantage to the taxpayer? >> we were in the position of investors all around the world. in many cases, you have to choose a rate as a reference book to which are landing in that context. we did what everybody else did, which is to use the best rate available at the time. now, we are taking a careful look and this is a matter of litigation as you know, not just the ongoing enforcement investigation about to what extent the rate was moved up or down are affected in any way. don't know yet what the results of those discussions will be. i can't speak to them.

but you're right to point out that we, like investors around the world had to take advantage of rates available at the time. we chose libor at that time as did many others. thank you. mr. frank -- congressman frank. >> thank you. mr. geithner, what is happening here is some of the leading financial institutions behaved in an outrageous fashion. these were not bad guesses about derivatives. these were not overconfidence about mortgages. this is conscious deception inherent self-interest in this and not just by individuals, but by an association that was given powers to self regulate in some ways. so your colleagues talk about the need for more self-regulation more prescriptive regulation, libor comes to mind is a strong reputation. the part that's troubling to me and hasn't happened yet this morning. i hope it doesn't, but in the

press and elsewhere an effort to blame you for all this because you happen to be the secretary of the treasury and the obama at it seems pretty extraordinary. you were an important, but not one of the top officials. i don't mean to denigrate you. the president of the federal reserve is an important institution and has been more important recently as ever before. you had a chairman of the federal reserve who is studying libor to set the race. mr. bernanke was all under the administration of president bush and the working group to which it reported. mr. paulson et cetera. i stress that because there was a failure to be tough and mouth with these private-sector people who were doing this, but the notion of his federal reserve is striking. i want to be clear, you reported

this to the president's working group on financial reform. who are the members of that group? who were they in 2008? give me names. >> the chairman of the federal reserve cut the cftc, chairman of the fcc and the secretary of the treasury. four members of the group. >> i think at that stage may be occasionally, but those are the core members. >> so these are all bush appointees. i think this is a problem not of regulators, but the private sector and the british because this is a british association. the people start pointing fingers to regulators, all those people were presidential appointees confirmed by the senate. you are not a presidential appointee. >> no. >> so these are five or six people above you in the organizational chart to whom he reported what you found and maybe things weren't bad

topamax, but i am struck that she know the cftc did begin the investigation, which culminated this. we have a situation where private banks formed an association with an american bank participation grievously misbehaved. you hear about it and reported to the financial working group consisting of bush appointees, many whom i value highly worked closely in 2008 in some people are dissatisfied not enough was done and that is a case that seems to be responsibility is broadly shared. to me ask you this question about today's two sale. the legislation is your nose size that is a large financial institution cannot pay its debt, it is put out of business and that no money can be spent by the federal government on the process of putting it out of business. i mean death. these are the debt panels. they were for big banks in the financial reform bill. the ceo and the other offices have gone, shareholders wiped out and that is what the law

says. the law also says that there's any money that has to be spent to write it down responsibility come to you or your successor is mandated, not authorize to recover. know what i've read is for instance the president of the federal reserve of dallas and his staff, but that is not going to work because if there was a failure of our institution, derby overwhelming pressure on you or your successor to provide federal funds to keep that institutionalized. do you think that's likely? >> likely that i wouldn't have the authority. >> you'd be breaking the law to do that. >> for congress did is change the law to limit the authority available to the regulators to protect institutions from its mistakes. >> and they are then put out of business. >> there's some now. there's a book you mr. conrad is

a managing dirt. i just got a copy complaining that we've restricted ability of the federal regulators to intervene and save an institution to matc. but i appreciate your point. if a large institution failed you, you would have no option under the law. and if anything had to be done to put it out of this as, you would get the money back from the banks. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. good morning, mr. secretary. i don't quite understand your answer concerning the fed views -- the new york fed's use of libor. on the one hand, i think you have said that quote, we had very early in response. we were worried about it. we were concerned about it, but it appears the early response was to keep using it, which means it appears you treated it

almost as a curiosity or something akin to jaywalking is supposed to highway robbery. i think i just heard you earlier in your testimony say quote unquote it was their best choice. there are other interest rate indexes out there. how can a number that you know has been manipulated, how cannot possibly be the best choice? >> again, we've are concerned about this and we did the important, very consequential thing to bring it to the attention of the full complement of regulatory authorities that is given responsibility and authority for market manipulation and abuse. >> the new york fed was not obligated to use libor, yes or no? >> of course not. >> we had to make a basic choice and i think that was the right choice that kind. >> for a manipulated number and not manipulated number? >> again, i would say this was a

brave that was structured in a way that was vulnerable to misreporting. we were very concerned and what we decided to do was to try to initiate a reform of the process with the british, but also to make sure the authorities made use of it. >> i'm sorry, we have a limited amount of time. a day to ask another question. as i review the annual report, i see a lot of discussion of the european debt crisis. frankly i see little discussion of the u.s. debt crisis. we know that on a nominal basis this country is now back up more debt in the last three years than in the previous 200. we now know her debt to gdp ratio exceeds our economy. even in the president's own budget after the 10 year window has budget states quote the fiscal situation deteriorates badly. the president has previously said the major driver of a

long-term debt is medicare, medicaid, health care spending, nothing comes close. that was in 2009. i have yet to see a reform plan for entitlement spending out of this administration. he testified before the budget committee in february this year and response to budget committee chairman paul ryan. he said that he was quote, right to say we, meaning the administration, are not coming before you today to say that we have a definite solution to that long-term problem. what we do know is we don't like yours. that was in february. i assume i haven't missed any of the news clips that the administration has come out with a plan. so if the president says this is the major driver, we know that the head of the federal reserve had also spoken about are unsustainable driven by

entitlement spending. i look at this report and i cannot find one mention of the word entitlement, not one mention of the word medicare. not one mention of the word medicaid. again, your own budget says quote, fiscal situation deteriorates badly. how can this not be sated as a major factor that could disrupt u.s. financial stability? and when if ever is the administration going to move on this? >> as you know, the job is not to recommend to the congress long-term reforms to entitlement spending or recommends solutions to long-term fiscal crisis. we agree that deficits are unsustainable. >> if i could, but is chapter three of this report all about? annual report recommendations. is this not impact competitiveness and stability of u.s. financial markets? >> we identify and report in

summarizing the report that use broad long-term fiscal risks for a significant risk to the american economy and therefore we highlighted that risk in the report as was appropriate. >> you just make no recommendation on what is actually driving according to the president of the united states. >> it's a strange thing to as the fed to see if he recommends a detailed medical reform plan. that's a strange thing. so you are right to say it's a risk at the council is right to highlight the risk, but it's not correct to say the council should have laid out reform recommendations for restructuring. >> about time that perhaps next time you can help me with a highlighter. >> ms. waters. >> thank you very much. according to andrew lo, a professor at m.i.t., this libor scandal talks about the magnitude of any financials and

at many markets. that's pretty strong. i'd like you to tell me if you think that statement is true. i would also like to know what impact the manipulation of having our financial markets and what impact it's going to have moving forward. take time to tell us about your serious and the changes that she recommended and i'd like to give you time and not take up all the time, so please go ahead. >> ltd. say a bit about the broader question. thank you for the chance to do so. and the detailed recommendations of the british, we identified a series of specific things that would make it unpalatable for this rate to be a fact did by the banks and son as to limit their reported cost of funds. we gave them again very specific detail changes for doing that and if those had been adopted, more of those have been adopted

sooner, you would illuminate the risk going forward. right now, let me just highlight a few things we think are important given where we are today because you're going to want to know what is next and what's ahead of us. let me just like you that if you give me a minute. the fsoc, counsel relevant agencies, which means the fed, fcc and the cftc are in the process of taking a very careful look at how to attract any potential implications of this remaining challenge for the financial system. these bodies are carefully examining other survey-based measures of interest rate in financial the price is overseen by other financial firms to assess any potential there for misreporting similar problems. they are carefully examining a broad range of potential reforms and alternatives to libor. there is a global effort to

avert a financial stability board, which includes all the world's major central banks and market regulators together in a global effort to review potential reforms. we are can tittering how to deal with the careful and delicate question of how to make it possible for enforcement agencies undertaken a confidential investigation reveals behavior that could impact the financial system as a whole, how to make it possible to share that information with the perp or protections and safeguards with the relevant agencies that have responsibility to the overall functioning of the system. very important question. we need to take a careful look at parts of the system where we would like, with the market relies still on informal private bodies run by financial firms like british bankers association that has some formal or informal self-regulatory role.

very important question your colleague referred to earlier. of course i think we all need to make sure that users were sent agencies have the resources they have to do their job at a specific example. a small police department with a population of the town and creases by time 100 times. you need to increase the size of the police department. if we do that, we'll have more powerful deterrent, tougher enforcement will come earlier with broader effects for all of us. all of these things, of course we will cooperate fully and be fully responsive to requests of this committee for broader information on this and of course will brief on the congress that each of those efforts look at reform and implications in how to benefit the system in the future to similar problems like this. >> given those recommendations in the problems we've had with the economic meltdown in this country, what else can congress

do to ensure that the interest rate that are being paid between the banks is fair and not that of the somehow we are not impacted a person who's sitting in a market in the united states? >> again, what you should do is what you're doing, which as you are conducting oversight of these agencies enough for them you should ask for periodic updates, buy from these agencies on reforms underway. that's fully appropriate. welcome an effort it will be fully up to it. >> thank you for a much, mr. chairman. i yield back. >> dr. paul. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and good morning, mr. secretary. i have a question about the president's working group on financial markets. there is an article that said

the president's working group on financial markets in june of 2008. during that time may assume you were president of the new york fed in june of 08? >> it was then made that we briefed them and i was the one -- >> the article said june, but okay, nay. is that the fed briefed the working group. does that mean you did it or someone else from the fed? >> it was on the agenda of the meeting and i went to provide. i wasn't a member of the group, but occasionally went to provide an update on this issue and my staff subsequently briefed officials of the treasury and federal officials that the fcc. >> okay. you're the chairman of that group right now, correct? >> yes, chairman of the council. >> in relation to that meeting you have and what you can't dance, and you keep detailed minutes of others meetings? >> we keep maintenance in the public